To die from ‘a draining away of one’s strength caused by extreme old age’ was in Montaigne’s day a ‘rare, singular and extraordinary death.’ Nowadays we assume it as our right.
For a woman, fidelity is a virtue; for a man, it’s hard work.
El arte siempre tiene al tiempo de su parte.
Well, getting our history wrong is part of being a person.
Once, we were talking about public reaction to some political scandal, and I suggested that it was normal for people to need someone to blame. ‘Normal doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,’ she answered.
And remember, whenever you see a character in a novel, let alone a biography or history book, reduced and neatened into three adjectives, always distrust that description.
Beware of dreams,” Elizabeth Finch replied. “Also, as a general rule, beware of what most people aspire to.
Monomania. Monogamy. Monotony. Nothing good begins this way.
Enforced monogamy is as much to say enforced happiness, which we know is not possible. Unenforced monogamy might seem possible. Romantic monogamy might seem to be desirable. But the first normally collapses back into a version of enforced monogamy, while the second is liable to become obsessive and hysterical. And thereby lies close to monomania. We should always distinguish between mutual passion and shared monomania.
Perhaps Goethe never found the right woman.
But if you think that only what is yours is yours, and that what is not your own is, just as it is, not your own, then no one will ever coerce you, no one will hinder you, you will blame no one, you will not accuse anyone, you will not do a single thing unwillingly, you will have no enemies, and no one will harm you, because you will not be harmed at all.
When I tell people that she was the most grown-up person I have known, I suppose what I mean is that there were principles very close behind, if not actually embedded in, all her actions and thoughts.
They say things are determined by genetics, by parenting, by heredity, by climate, by diet, by geography, by time spent in the womb, by nature, by nurture. They fail to hear the elephant in the room, trumpeting away: history.
And secondly, reducing the diversity between people didn’t result in harmony within. The narcissism of small differences ensured this.
Be approximately satisfied with approximate happiness. The only thing in life which is clear and beyond doubt is unhappiness.
Monoglot, the sign of an enclosed and self-deluding country.
This was a typical statement from my mother: lucid, opinionated, explicitly impatient of opposing views. Her dominance of the family, and her certainties about the world, made things usefully clear in childhood, restrictive in adolescence, and grindingly repetitive in adulthood.
He said that there were three preconditions for happiness – stupidity, selfishness and good health.
One secret of the Christian religion’s success was always to employ the best moviemakers.
There was an old char who came twice a week, Mrs. Dyer; she had poor eyesight for cleaning but perfect vision for stealing vegetables and pints of milk. But who else came to the house? No friends were mentioned. Each weekend, Macleod played a round of golf; Susan had the tennis club. In all the times I joined them for supper, I never met anyone else.
From what I did and what I said Let them not seek to find who I was.